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Monday, 29 July 2013

Egypt: Seeking a Way Out

A friend
asked me recently what Egyptian liberals were thinking these days, and I
replied ruefully that I imagined it felt like scrambling back into the frying
pan to get out of the fire. That is, if post-Mubarak military rule was the
frying pan, then Muslim Brotherhood rule was the fire. He also asked if, given
the roiling polarization in Egyptian society between secularists and Islamists,
and the stalemate between Muslim Brotherhood supporters and the military, civil
war loomed on the horizon. The state has a monopoly on force of arms in Egypt,
unlike in Syria or Iraq, and the Muslim Brotherhood has no militias at its
command- yet- so civil war in the classic sense is not imminent, but if the
situation continues to deteriorate and foreign powers intervene to arm
factions, it will be a very real threat.

So is there
any way to pull back from the brink, to diffuse the crisis without more
bloodshed?

For the
past month, there have been hundreds of thousands of Morsi diehards camped out
in front of a mosque in Cairo’s Nasr City neighborhood. All efforts to dislodge
them have failed so far, in spite of clashes with the authorities that have led
to a hundred killings. They are digging in, literally digging up sidewalk
bricks to build a wall around the perimeter of the mosque. The unsanitary ad
hoc tent-living conditions have become a serious health hazard, not to mention the
traffic impasse and total disruption of the lives of the hapless, infuriated residents
of the neighborhood, who are hardly mollified by some protesters’ offers of flowers
and apologies.

The
military authorities have warned that they will ‘soon’ move to dislodge the
encampments. It is a necessary step, most Egyptians believe, to clear, not just
the Morsi supporter mosque sit-in, but also Tahrir and all the other offshoot
sit-ins as well. The right to free speech and assembly, even in a democracy,
means the right to march and demonstrate, with the prerequisite permit, and
police protection- after which everyone goes home. It does not mean the right
to take over every public space and turn it into a permanent, lawless, tent
city cum soup kitchen cum street fair populated as much by the homeless, the
hungry, or the jobless as by committed activists. Egyptians want, need, and
deserve a return to civility, to patrolled city streets, to functional city
squares, and to law and order.

On the
other hand, it would be a serious mistake for General El-Sissi and the military
to interpret the massive turnout in their favor as a mandate to massacre. Moral
issues aside, there is more appetite on the Muslim Brotherhood side to create
martyrs than there is on the military’s, and for good reason. The Muslim Brethren
are a minority, unquestionably, but their support runs deep. For every Morsi
supporter camped out in front of the mosque, for every card-carrying Muslim Brotherhood
member, there are multiple sympathizers in the society at large, and that is
true across the socio-economic divide. I can think of one example of twin sisters,
thirty-something young women whose father, on their eighteenth birthday, bought
each a matching Mercedes sports car to drive to college. One marched in support
of the Military takeover, and one supported the Muslim Brotherhood. Families
are divided on the issue, brother against sister, and husband against wife.

The hope,
therefore, is to diffuse the crisis through negotiation, and not by forcible
eviction of the encampment. There are signs of political will on the part of
Western powers to find a peaceful solution. The European Union has sent its
Foreign Policy chief, Catherine Ashton, to Egypt to try to broker a deal,
officially at the behest of the stakeholders. On the Egyptian government side,
she will find competent, experienced interlocutors in Vice-President Mohamed
Baradei, former chief of the U.N. Nuclear Agency, and Foreign Minister Nabil
Fahmi, former ambassador to Washington. On the MB side, president Morsi is held
incommunicado and other leaders are under arrest, but there are other prominent
heads of the movement to negotiate through. Intriguingly, a group of younger
cadres who call themselves the “Brethren Without Violence” have dissented from
the MB leadership and may lead the way out of the mosque encampment.

For its
part, the Obama seems to grasp the wider implications of the crisis for the
stability of the region and has charged Foreign Secretary Kerry to broker talks
with Israeli and Palestinian leaders with a view to re-launching the peace
process. It truly is the eleventh hour, but the hope seems to be that Israel
might recognize the urgency for stability in an increasingly unstable region,
and that the Abbas administration in the Palestinian Territories might
recognize an opportunity when its rival, Hamas in Gaza, is weakened by the loss
of the Morsi administration’s support.

For the
U.S., Israel and the world, not only Egypt but also Gaza and Syria are in play.
The Brotherhood were to all evidence supporting Islamist radicals in an
increasingly lawless Sinai, as well as supporting Hamas in Gaza and the
Islamist insurgency in Syria against Bashar Assad. Egyptian volunteers were
allegedly travelling to Syria for jihad, and might come back radicalized and pose
a threat to their own society and beyond.

Pursuing a
peaceful solution to the impasse in Egypt that allows the MB to save face is
worth every iota of patience and self-control the military can muster and the
civilian authorities can urge. The alternative is a bloodbath and the creation
of martyrs that will serve as a radicalizing myth to inspire generations of
terrorists, and cleave a fractured society irreparably in two.

2 comments:

One interesting (recent) outcome of the coup/non-coup is that powerful Republicans in the Senate are lining up with Democrats to ensure that $1.2-1.5 Billion in aid to Egypt will continue.Rand Paul today wanted to get a vote in the Senate to force the cutoff by virtue of some recent legislation that would require such a cutoff if a military coup unseats a democratically elected government.The appropriate, but hollow clamor about supporting democratically elected governments by the US fall quickly when strategically important needs have to be met. Hamas in Palestine has to be a weakened as a precursor to any rapprochement with Israel.

Also, Morsi had been useful as a strong supporter of the Syrian revolution, but today U.S. policy seems less keen on continuing support for the Syrian opposition,now that it looks to be dominated by Islamist fighters.

About Me

I am a novelist, an editor, and an essayist. I was born and grew up in Egypt, and left at the age of twenty for London to study Politics at university, before immigrating to the United States. Everything I do is linked to words: I am the author of two novels, The Cairo House and The Naqib's Daughter, as well as a collection of short stories, Love is Like Water. I am an editor of South Writ Large: a magazine of stories, arts and ideas from the Global South. I have taught foreign languages at university and published on women and Islam; written a weekly book review column; edited books; engaged regularly in public speaking on current events.
I am currently writing a first-hand account of living and engaging in the Egyptian Revolution of January 25th.